Happy Official NBA Green Week, UESiders!

Hey, NCAA March Madness!  Get with it!

As we look toward Earth Day…

 

rhododendron

Let’s move on to the week ahead:

Friday, April 4th:  NYSkies Astronomy Seminar

McBurney House, 125 West 14th Street between Sixth & Seventh, 6:30-9:30pm 

Starmaster John Pazmino’s topic:  The TOTAL lunar eclipse on April 15th! (Every blessed one of these lectures – held every second Friday – we’ve attended has been fascinating!)  Free.

Now through Sunday, May llth: “The Islands of New York” Exhibition

Queens Museum, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens 

Don’t we all have an unlimited appetite for photographs of our NYC? Especially its less familiar and often less decorative corners which photographer Accra Shepp so beautifully explores.  For more, directions and hours…  (And this from The Times…)

Now through Friday, May 16:  John Cage – Artist and Naturalist Exhibition

Horticultural Society of New York, 148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor 

Brilliant composer, yes.  Admirer of Thoreau…  Okay.  Mushroom enthusiast… Say what?  Yup, and so avid that he co-founded the New York Mycological Society!  And included them in his collaborative visual art creations which are now on display!   For days, hours and more…

Saturday, April 5th:  82nd Street Greenmarket

82nd Street between First and York, 9am –2pm

Compost & Clothes Collection – 9am – 1pm 

Yes, indeed last Saturday’s weather was pretty nightmarish…  But the tough, green people of American Seafood, Bread Alone, Ballard Honey, Samascott, Gajeski, Rising Sun Beef and Rabbits’ Run Farms toughed it out… And they’ll all be back at their tables this week!

News flash from Dan at Rabbits’ Run:   “I will have bags of Laurie’s mesclun salad mix (red mustard/red Russian kale/mizuna/tat-soi/and several more flavorful micro-greens)!” 

Even newer news flash from our uber Market Manager, Margaret Hoffman: “We’re be changing poultry producers at 82nd this week…  From Yellow Bell (they’re moving elsewhere) ro Garden of Spices which’ll be with us as of this Saturday. Great news as Garden of Spices offers our shoppers even more great poultry products – chicken, eggs, duck and (sometimes) duck livers and eggs…  Mushroom, too!”

Last week’s recycling totals:  53 lbs batteries;  22 lbs filters, cords, CDs/DVDs, corks, cellphones and cartridges; 4 pair of eye glasses; 8 bins of compost; 16 bags of clothes.

8 bins on a day when only committed composters ventured out of cozy apartments!  

(Remember:  April is Wearable Collection’s – the folks who collect clothes at 82nd Street – Earth Month Shoe Drive!)

Sunday, April 6th:  “Triple Divide” Screening

The Riverside Church,  490 Riverside Drive at West 120th Street, Room 411 MLK, 1pm

Great as “Gasland I and II” were, there’s plenty more to be said on the subject of fracking, its effects close to home and impact on the sources of 3 great rivers… The Allegheny, the Genesee and the Susquehanna…  AKA: The Triple Divide.  Sponsored by the Beloved Earth Community of the Riverside Church, United for Action and West 80s Neighborhood Association.  Suggested donation:  $10

Saturday, April 5th:  Dvorak’s Cello Concerto

Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, 6:30pm

An evening devoted to the recently discovered solo cello part of Antonín Dvořák’s beautiful American masterwork, The Cello Concerto:  Exhibition of the manuscript, an interactive performance of the work and discussion by Dvořák experts. (Love that it’s presented by the Dvorak American Heritage Association!) $20.  For more…

And then:

Sunday, April 13th:  Electronic Recycling Event

Amsterdam Avenue between West 74th and West 75th, 10am-4pm

Working & non-working computers, monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, cables, TV’s, VCR’s, DVD players, phones, audio/visual equipment, cell phones, and video gaming equipment.  NO household appliances!   (They can go the plastic/metal/glass bins in your building.)   (And do keep in mind, all of the above electronics can be recycled free of charge at any Best Buy!)   For more event details… 

TUESDAY, APRIL 22nd:  EARTH DAY!

Worldwide, 24 wonderful hours!

For celebratory Manhattan events…

Sunday, April 27th:  It’s My Park Day – Part I 

East River Esplanade at 96th Street, 10am-3pm

As we write, daffodils, crocuses, tulips and a ton of other bulbs are poking out of what was once a big, dismal planter and is now in the process of being reborn… Come and clear away remnants of our harsh winter (so those bulbs can really bask in tidy glory), scrape and paint railings and more! Refreshments, a river view and the thanks of a grateful UES will be your reward! 

Monday, April 28th:  Friends of the East River Esplanade Benefit Bash

Bar Felice, 1591 First Avenue between 82nd & 83rd Street, 6:30-8:30pm

Rather than the crumbling wreck we’ve got, we want a gorgeous, soothing ribbon of parkland with state-of-the-art infrastructure!  And on 4/28, we’ll be taking the first step toward that end!  So, eat, drink and help make the future happen!  For further info… 

Way out there:

Friday, May 9th:  Annual GrowNYC Plant Sale

College Avenue Garden, 1420 College Avenue between East 170th & 171st Streets, The Bronx, 12-4pm

Now in its 18th year, the sale’s a wonderful and budget-wise resource for community gardens throughout our city…  And the list of available flower, veg and herb seedlings is impressively long!  For the lowdown, including plants and order form...

Sunday, May 18th:  It’s My Park Day – Part II

East River Esplanade at 96th Street, 10am-3pm 

We’ll be turning soil (mixing in compost and mulch but not disturbing the bulbs we put in last fall), installing new landscaping in the planter as per our beautiful new gardening scheme, scraping and painting railings and – as always – more! Refreshments and maybe some surprise entertainment… Be there!

Monday, May 19th – Thursday, May 23rd: Internet Week New York 2014

Metropolitan Pavillion & Other Venues, 125 West 18th Street

Doesn’t fit our green mold, but interesting so what the heck:  A host of tech heavy weights, Webby Award ceremonies, even a a Food & Tech seminar! Passes begin at high-flying $395.  For more…

petrea-volubilis

We’ve never been more miscellaneous…  Teeing off with the frown-inspring:

For all we think it’s bad in West Virginia (and it is), coal mining in Poland… Well, downright incredible in 2014. 

Need an argument against nuclear?

You do know that Starbucks is presently using milk produced by cows living in “concentrated” conditions and fed with GMO grains?  Should you think the company could be more closely adhering to its proclaimed corporate responsibility code…

Tree people alert!   Sorry to say, the NYS DEC discovered more oak wilt – a fungal disease affecting all oak varieties –  last fall.  Yes, upstate, but we have to keep our eyes peeled!  

You won’t be seeing flats of impatiens – the popular tree-bed/landscape flower – at our Greenmarkets or garden stores.  It’s suffering from what’s still a mystery disease and commercial growers aren’t planting it this year.

Hearts skipped a beat when we first read the headline.  But, no, not a new and less ugly Port Authority Bus Terminal Building…  Rather a terminal annex the Authority would like to build…   Oh, well.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s now rated the world’s best city for commuters. (New York doesn’t rate a mention…  Perhaps judges have ridden the sardine-can Lex line and/or are familiar with Second Ave subway construction.) 

Definitely on the upswing:

A big pat on the back for us, fellow/sister Americans!  We favor energy conservation over just burning our way through more oil/coal/gas.

In that regard, pretty fabulous that intensely energy gobbling data centers are getting significantly greener!

Can hardly believe it but in a huge victory for animal rights groups, the International Court of Justice has order Japan to stop whaling immediately!

Meanwhile, as of April 1st, trout season’s opened in New York State! (Just scraping the surface of current outdoor activity on offer all over NYS!) 

Signed up for the 2014 (now TCS) New York Marathon?  Love our Central Park?  Now you can merge the two by becoming a Team Central Park member and raise bucks for the park’s great conservancy with your every step!

If you’re not familiar with the critiques of proposed alternations to landmarked properties the Historic Districts Council issues every week, here’s one in our hood: 

Item 20

CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS – BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN

20 East 63rd Street – Upper East Side Historic District

A rowhouse originally designed by Gage Inslee and built in 1876, and altered by J.M. Beringer in 1954. Application is to install storefront infill and awnings, replace windows, alter the front façade, and install areaway fences.

East 63rd

While we appreciate the effort the applicant has made to redesign a rowhouse that is in need of some work, HDC feels the result is rather overdone.  The Upper East Side Historic District is a balance of grand buildings and elegant, but more subdued ones.  We ask that this balance be maintained with a more toned down new design.  

(Right on, Council members!)

Fingers crossed many more audible signals will soon be assisting disabled folks wishing to cross our streets!

How about some green job avenues?

All we know is that if we were ever to leave NYC, it’d be for this building… (Scroll down.)

Only in New York would one of the essential backbones of its farmers markets be…  Tibetans!  So what do they eat?  We’re dying to find out and Jackson Heights has become a hotbed of  Tibetan cuisine!  

Still on the restaurant beam:  Seems an Eataly-style Mexican food extravaganza is soon to open in the Flatiron District!

On to the obscure:

For those of us who’ve long wondered why the name Muhlenberg’s attached to so many American institutions (even a NYC library branch) but were too lazy to google…  Turns out Frederick Muhlenberg was our first Speaker of the House! 

The new best way to peel garlic involves a cocktail shaker!

And a programming note:

Science and Discovery Channels will be tracking the Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $30 million competition for privately-funded teams to land an unmanned craft on the moon by December 31, 2015. A mini-series will follow progress of teams from around the world as they race to land a craft on the surface of the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit live pictures and video back to earth!

delosperma-jewel-of-desert

Whew!  We need some animals:

Of course, a person has to know how best to deal with mountain goats!

Can’t more strongly recommend the New York Historical Society’s Audubon’s Aviary show.  The prints – the Society has almost every one, thus necessitating three successive exhibitions – are gorgeous and genius curators thought to add the incredible texture with each bird’s particular song/warble/screech.  (Kids were there and rapt the day we visited!) 

We end on a quiet note from the Hudson River Almanac:

3/25 – Manhattan, HRM 2: I came upon a pair of adult red-breasted mergansers yesterday, swimming together off Pier 49. I returned today with a camera hoping to find them feeding again. And sure enough, there they were! –  Andrew Salcius

Our greenest,

UGS